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So whats really better, buying or renting?

dragoness Rembrandt

By dragoness Rembrandt,
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dragoness Rembrandt

dragoness Rembrandt

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HI, after reading and confusing myself about investing in land on SL, which one is actually more beneficial long term? Someone else said to me that renting is so much easier and cheaper?! Then someone else says "NO WAY! its cheaper to own and pay tiers. Well I don't really know which way to go. I only want on full sim to medieval rp with that I can deed to a group. How hard is it? 

 

Oh yes and if there is anyone out there who want to share a sim please feel free to IM me.

 

Kindest Regards

Rosabella

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Ceera Murakami

Ceera Murakami

Posted
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If you need a whole sim, and can afford to pay $1000 USD up front (or can manage to buy a used one for less - some people are dumping sims for little more than the transfer fee, just to stop paying tier and not abandon the thing outright), and if you can can afford to pay $295 USD a month in tier, then for an RP sim I would advise getting a full-purpose private island, and actually owning it, and paying tier direct to LL. You don't have to be Premium to do that, incidentally. A Basic member can purchase a whole sim from LL, as a private island. or can accept a transfer of a full-prim private island's ownership. As long as you have a beefy enough credit card on file.

You probably would NOT want to rent a full sim of Manland. No access control and no control over your visible neighbors can ruin roleplay.

Renting a sim from another person who actually owns it gives you far less control over the activities and terraforming in your sim, and leaves you subject to the possibility that the sim owner could take your money, and still default on their tier to LL and lose the sim, leaving you with nothing. Cost wise, unless the sim owner gets a sweetheart deal from LL for their monthly tier, because they own thousands of sims, they will have to charge you at least $295 USD a month, and more likely somenthing more, to rent that full sim. Because it will cost THEM $295 a month to pay LL in tier. (At best, anyone othe rthan a mega-landlord will have to pay LL at least $195 USD a month to pay for their tier, if they have a grandfathered sim.)

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Miranda Umino

Miranda Umino

Posted
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The both .. It s  a market ..

 

Let stake a simple instance :

you have a friend who has 1012 m²   and he pays fees . Fees are 8 $ for 1012 m²

you want a parcel of 512 m²  . Fees are 5 $ for 512 m² .

But your friend doesn t need anymore 1024 , and 512 are enough for him . 

If he offers you to rent 512 m² for  a price-equivalent-lindens-to-dollars superior to 5$  on his parcel , you won t be interested . Because you pay more with him than buying .

If he offers you to rent 512 m² for  a price-equivalent-lindens-to-dollars inferior to 3$ on his parcel , he won t be interested . Because he will have only 512 m$ , pays 8$ fees , and has less 3$ income , so a balance superior to 5$ . It s more advantageous for him to give up his 1024 m² and buy a 512 m².

If he offers you to rent 512m² for a price-equivalent-lindens-to-dollars between the two limits 3$ and 5$ , for instance 4 .5 $ : You will pay with renting less with him than buying . You  spend 0.5 $ less.

And on his side , he will pay 8$ fees but will earn 4.5$ for renting from you . So the 512 m² he has kept he would spend only 8-4.5= 3.5 $

 

This instance is showing than the both , the one who is renting and the one who is buying , spend less money together .

 

Of course , the one who is buying can have a little advantage because he can spend less money than the one who is renting . But he has some risks too  ( for instance you dissolve your contract )

 

An another point :

You have said 

"Someone else said to me that renting is so much easier and cheaper?"

I m not convinced by "it s easier" . Of course you don t need to manage your land when you rent . Nevertheless it s a lack of rights that you give up to the one one you rent . You are less free to do everything you want to do on your land if you rent it . It s more , in my opinion a disadvantage

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Knowl Paine

Knowl Paine

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If my budget was enough for a full Region, I would come up with the extra money to buy a new Region from LL. I would not rent. I view it as pay a set up fee and have full control over the Region, renting would be like getting 4 months of free rent but then when you stop renting, you've got nothing left to sell.

I've rented a Homestead Region, that was really nice, the owner allowed me to do whatever I wanted. It never took more than a day to get something changed. (she had a lot of managers)

For one month, I "shared" a Region, it was a horrible experience. If you want to "share" a Region, you should get into the Rental business. A Region should have 1 owner. 

Depending on your plans, you could consider renting for a month or two. You could rent 2 open space/homestead Regions for the price of one full Region. The number of allowed avatars in each Region is lower and the total prim count is half but you get twice the amount of space. From a builders/landscapers perspective, this can be very beneficial in developing the Region(s).

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Amethyst Jetaime

Amethyst Jetaime

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If you are buying a full sim, look on the secondary market.  You can get one far cheaper than the $1,000 US the lindens charge.  You can also rename it and move it to another location at the time you buy it for no extra charge.  There is a transfer fee when a sim, including full estate rights, is transferred to another person.  It is $150US.  Sometimes that is included in the asking price and sometimes not,  Just be sure to ask. 

You can also negotiate the price with a motivated seller.  Also take into account how much tier is prepaid.  Ask what date the tier comes due next because that's when your first tier will be due.  A sim with the tier paid a few weeks in advance may be a better deal than one with the tier due in a few days.  Add up the total cost to determine which is better - Price, transfer fee if this is seperate and you have to pay rather than the seller, and how soon tier is due. 

Finally, a seller may claim that their sim is 'grandfathered' and the tier is less than the standard one.  It used to be true that grandfathering transferred to the new owner, but as of January of this year that was changed.  Some grandfathered sim owners are not aware of this.  So plan on paying the $295US a month rate regardless of what your told.

To find a sim for sale, check these forums.  There are also several groups you can join in world for people buying and selling sims.  Look in classifieds, and also land search.  You want the ad or land description to read 'full estate rights transferred' or something similiar.   Don't jump at the first one you see unless you know its a great deal.  Always check all your options first to get the best deal.

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Josephina Bonetto

Josephina Bonetto

Posted
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When I sold my private region in 2009 I was prepared to negotiate on things like transfer fees etc etc.

I sold mine in this group, I believe https://my.secondlife.com/groups/4b169c85-4c84-957e-6834-58216d9a5390 but I don't know if it is still active.

Worth noting that making a sim pay is extremely hard, and that is an understatement, be certain you can cover 295USD pm without it paying for itself before you buy.  But I am sure you do not need me to tell you that.  If you are outside of the US, VAT will usually be applicable too.

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Phil Deakins

Phil Deakins

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If it's mainland, the owner's name is in About Land box. Your method will work just fine.

If it's a private island sim, you can't change the owner just by setting it for sale and having him buy it. You have to transfer the ownership with LL, and they charge US$150(?) to do it. He can buy it for 1L, but you're still the owner and you still have to pay the tier.

ETA: be sure not to fall out with your partner after he has ownership, or you could have given the sim away.

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Nefertiti Nefarious

Nefertiti Nefarious

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Hello, thank you for your feedback. I think that is what I am worried about is keeping up with the monthly tier if I buy. Although the sim will be well set up to generate $L for itself.

 

Don't go into it until you have at least 6 months of payments to linden labs on hand as cash or otherwise secure ... it takes a while for a sim to gain users, and the most common problem with any of the RP sims is that the owner runs out of money before the rental income can cover the tier fees.

And the people who rented early see all their work go POOF when the owner has to abandon the sim and they will not be an early renter again.

 

 

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GothGirl Demonia

GothGirl Demonia

Posted
Posted

To answer the question it really depends on a few things.

1. A full region in Second Life costs $300 USD per month, and the cost in L$ is around 81k Linden Per month, anything above that and you are over paying for a full region.

2. It also depends on what you are using the land for, if you just want a small piece like a 4096, or Prims, then there are other land rental deals you can make if you are just interested in using the land for a place to set your home, or have a house and such.

3. If you are looking for a full Region, and can afford up to around $350 USD per month then I guess the choice is up to you, there are some Land Rental companies in SL I know charge 8k Per 4096 SQM per month, now if you do the basic math 8000 L$ X 16 = 128k L$, which comes out to around $496.13 USD, or $478.14 cashed out through Linden Lab back to real money, so in other words if a region costs $300 USD per month they make $196 USD profit if they take that L$ and resell it through a third party site like some do, or they make $178 USD profit if they cash it out through Linden Lab, and that is only per region imagine owning 1000+ Regions in SL and doing that if you manage to keep them all full you would be rich.

4. So to answer the question in my opinion if you can afford a full region, I would just simply buy a full region, or find a land owner who doesn't care about making a big profit and renting it from them at regular price of around 81k L$ per month. I know that there are a lot of RP regions in SL as well that rent land out at 8k Per 4096 and that is still way over priced as well.

5. Renting, can be cheap if you can find a desperate owner who is loosing profit and wants to rent their region without making a big profit, if you need to see if you are over paying go here and check on the L$ calculator, but if I were to make a full RP sim I would just buy the whole region myself.

https://secondlife.com/my/lindex/sell.php

6. Another alternate option is to rent on a homestead a 16384 SQM if you are just looking for a home, not an entire rp sim, or maybe renting a full homestead for RP, but that would not work well on combat based RP, and would only work if you had a small group of friends that logon and RP at different times as a homestead can only hold like 20 people.

-Other-

7. Also remember that RP regions do attract a lot of Drama, and Griefing I know this from experience, and you need a good Admin/GM's who can manage and help deal with such unless you are there 24/7, this is if the simulator has build on anyways otherwise you can just turn off build and keep it text based RP never have to worry about that at least not much anyways, and yes you can simply use an age verify script, but there are ways to circumvent most everything I would say the best option right now is to only allow residents without payment info into your land keeps repeat griefers from coming back over and over at least they cant easily do it as fast.

8. And if you are doing Combat based RP and not text then you will need some type of hud like DCS, or BNWCS. I like BNWCS a lot for combat based RP and really I would love to see some new great RP sims without drama, and sims run by experienced people open again in SL as it seems the community in general has lost quite a few sims that were once good in my opinion, and some have downsized big times.

9. But you also have to take into account that most MMORPG based titles are coming Free 2 Play that means you don't have to pay real money for anything at all, and so some of these RPG titles might draw people away from RP sims in SL, as well as combat based, well I will be honest to a certain point it drew me away from SL because in those games don't have drama really compared to what goes on in SL, although SL is more of a virtual 3D Chatroom for friends aka a Simulator, not a game, so given the fact that SL scripting does lack a lot of things it can cause some problems in my opinion at least I think, take a look at an example.

http://www.lineage2.com

I know that this game is unrelated to SL, but it  was developed years ago, and I really would love to see a RPG with similar armors, or mesh like used in L2, Animations, and a Total Skills System with effects like in L2 for example, although I don't know it is possible that is one of my dreams to see actually come true in SL like when Rodvik was talking about NPC's I think, I mean not an exact duplicate of such an RPG, but something that has cool looking spells, skills, armors, and fully PVP between avatars in SL would be great.



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Pussycat Catnap

Pussycat Catnap

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Posted

Marifee Dexler wrote:

I'm selling my sim to my partner to avoid VAT. How do i know ive sold it to him and not just rented it to him?  its set for sale specifically to him for 1L

If your partner takes that, runs with it, bans you, disolves the partnership, and gets a new sucker, the Lindens will just sit back and ignore it all.

Hope that's someone you can rely on in 'Real Life' and not just SL, or we're about to see another one of those drama threads in the forums in a few days...

 

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dragoness Rembrandt

dragoness Rembrandt

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Hi GothGirl, thanks for your great reply. :matte-motes-big-grin:

It seems that I am probably at less risk if I just rent a sim that I have found which is L$7000 per week although it is a homestead and interesting to know about the restriction for avatars on the sim. I did also notice that there is also a restriction on the prims being under 4k which means there is really not a lot you can put on such a large peice of land.

Oh yes I do see your points about RP lands in sl with the griefing and the reasons why some people are attracted to others. I currently help out on some RP sims at the moment to help bump up the traffic by marketing them and also placing more realistic RP activities for a better experience as well as more fun for them. So I went to see the RP game you mentioned also and well, that looks like what I am trying to achieve at the moment. The costs of adding what is needed is fairly high when I am not a developer myself and can only make the basic things, so buying the made products needed to do this is far easier for me and I guess it is leveraging too when I can do other important things. The owners pay for the object I need to improve their sims now although I was paying for them myself at the start as it was my contribution and thanks for the opportunity they had given me. 

Now I am looking to do something for me and for my style of RP without the crap that you can indeed get from some players. Mind you I am targeted, and it is mainly from jealousy. Either because I can put anything I want on the sim, or I have more prims than they are allowed, and there has also been an instance where it was only because I was a woman she didnt want her sl man looking at. Its rediculous really when I am only here to have fun and to help others best I can. 

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